When we heard NAR would be in New Orleans this year, my husband, John, and I decided to make a road trip of it. We kissed the baby goodbye, thanked the mother-in-law for watching him and set out to on the 780 miles of open road between Cape Coral and New Orleans. After about 270 miles of chatter, I busted out the computer to give you all a slice of our geeky life! So, without further ado: this is our road trip clip show of digestible SEO advice inspired completely by the scenery and discussions on our trip.

Ocala, FL: discuss posting "puff" pieces on blogs

Had a long discussion abut how we hate to post "puff" pieces on our blogs. However, sometimes thats all you have to post, so you have to find a way to work in something educational and give the post value to both users and search engines.  Even if you are going to post something really personal- work in something real estate or neighborhood related. Your blog is a sales tool, first and foremost. Clearly this article was born out of that discussion!

Read also: Blog writing 101: how to write relevant content for real estate

Tallahassee, FL: client calls and asks for my help in selecting a domain name with good SEO value.

Dont take yourself too seriously and use your name in your domain. We stopped at McDonalds to grab coffee this morning. We didnt stop at Ray Crocs (founder of McDonalds).  You probably didnt know who he was until I just said that.   This applies to selecting a domain name.  Unless you are famous and housewives are murmuring your name, people simply arent searching for YOU, they are searching for a house and A GOOD Realtor. Select a domain name rich in keywords like real estate, realty, your farm area, homes, condos, house, etc. Make sure the domain you select doesnt include poison words, hard to spell terms or hyphens (-) and has a .com extension. That will make the domain both search engine and user friendly.

Pensacola, FL: discuss hotel room with CFO, he said that Hotels.com showed the room at $199/night but when he actually booked it, it was $399/night. Seems deceptive to us.

Not taking yourself seriously enough. No one is more of an expert on your farm areas and industry than you, so research what you say and say what you know. Getting caught in lie or mischaracterization on your blog can be deadly for a real estate professional. Quote and link to your sources! Both John and I are research freaks, if we say something there is a good chance that we can quote or direct you to authoritative research that supports what we said. Thats how you become an expert! Remember it is better to remain silent and appear a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt. 

Read also: Dont get caught lying on your blog

Mobile, AL: John goes on a very long, funny and at times poignant diatribe on the mental health ramifications of interstate incompetent drivers.

Off topic rants in blog posts or comments on your can dilute your SEO (diminish keyword density) and make you look unprofessional. Incite lively debate even a blog war (on topic blogging or commenting)- but do not go off topic in the comments on your blog and try to guide visitors that do back on topic. Looking like a "hot head" is the last thing you want to do. You want to seem like a Zen master by keeping your cool at all times and presenting your case with substantiated facts when responding to ranting commenter even when inciting a blog war. 

Read also: Commenting 101: driving traffic through commenting

Gulfport, MS: talk about what Hurricane Katrina has to do with SEO

As we approach the devastation of Gulfport Mississippi caused by hurricane Katrina, the dreaded poison word discussion crept upon us. Poison words are words or phrases which if used in your URL or content cause Google and other engines to dampen your pages in the search engine results pages. Google and others weight these "poison" words and phrases less than other words and phrases in their algorithms because they have determined that this ever growing list of words are most likely to be used by spam sites. Poison words and phrases include: prescription medications, curse words, sexually explicit words, "Hurricane Katrina", "search engine", "Google" and even the word "blog." There is a very long list of poison words, but you get the general idea. You can use these words, but you must be careful to not overuse them and if you do use some of them often as I do, be sure to drive authority for your site with a solid backlink strategy to lessen the dampening effects of those words.

Silence doesnt work for blogs. Theres an old saying that says, "no news is good news." That doesnt apply to blogs. You must blog regularly. Google uses an adaptive search mechanism that detects page freshness and content changes. Prolonged periods of silence will lead Google to crawl you less often. Once Google stops crawling you, it is very hard to incite Google to return. It usually requires an external stimulus like other sites linking in to you to kick start Googles spiders to return to your site. So, keep on blogging.

Read also: Best and worst blogs: common mistakes bloggers make

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